Presentation to the Kern-Kaweah Chapter of the Sierra Club by Zoom on 6 March 2021. A visual summary of our nearly 50 weekly escapes from Covid-19 lockdown.
Since the advent of the first Covid-19 lockdown in California in mid-March 2020, Nancy and I have taken weekly day-trips to explore our region. Fully cognizant of the need to socially distance...[more]
Caltrans’ District 9, which serves the east side of the Sierra Nevada mostly along the popular north-south tourist route of Highway 395, expects to have its DCFC stations in operation by early March...[more]
This is the way fast charging a non-Tesla EV should be. Pull up, plug in, tap a few numbers on an easily readable screen and start charging. Easy peasy. No RFID card, no credit card, no app. Plug in...[more]
Citing a market participant, Jenkins noted on Twitter that roughly 26 gigawatts of thermal energy is offline because natural gas is being diverted to provide heat instead of power. Only about 4...
I’ve just learned that an open-air museum of wind turbines in Germany has expanded its collection to include two US-built machines. I hope to get there some day--once Covid-19 has lifted. Nothing...[more]
Ok everyone, I’ll give in. I’ll say something about GE’s big new wind turbine that’s all the rage in the media.[more]
I just added chocolate as a category of subjects that celebrate wind turbines or traditional windmills. Yes, chocolate. I thought “home decor” would be the last category on the topic. I never...[more]
It was quite an honor to be asked to join a distinguished group boldly stating that “A World Based on 100% Renewables is Possible” now.[more]
Vietnam has just witnessed a veritable solar tsunami, with installations jumping from about 400MW in 2019 to 9.500MW by the end of 2020. This is unprecedented for the rooftop solar PV market in any...[more]
Nevertheless, the sharper irony, addressed here, is that the cap-and-trade program that is being vilified for perpetrating environmental inequities appears in practice to be diminishing them.
In a sign that Feed-in Tariffs as a policy mechanism for the rapid—and equitable—development of renewable energy are not dead and that their proponents have not given up the hope of a brighter post...[more]
Guy Dauncey’s novel Journey to the Future: A Better World is Possible has been extolled by a who’s who of Canadian environmental thought leaders from Elizabeth May, onetime leader of Canada’s Green...[more]
David Toke's China’s Role in Reducing Carbon Emissions: The Stabilisation of Energy Consumption and the Deployment of Renewable Energy provides a valuable service in explaining--in English--China's...[more]
Germany’s Energy Transition is a compilation of articles on the progress of Germany's revolutionary transition to renewable energy from fossil fuels and nuclear power. It joins a growing list of...[more]
For those who've fought the wind wars and done battle with renewable energy skeptics, climate denialists, and the "wind turbines cause cancer" crowd, Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Communicated Disease by...[more]
"Long overdue, this guide on how to place renewable energy in the landscape to maximize public acceptance is critical to the energy transition that is so desperately needed."[more]
Small-Scale Renewable Energy Systems is a slim 210-page book on hybrid renewable projects by Swedish authors Sven Ruin and Göran Sidén.[more]
I bristled when Vaughn Nelson contacted me for help with his new book Innovative Wind Turbines. Not that it was Vaughn. He's my mentor and the founder of West Texas A&M University’s Alternative...[more]
Ok, I am a windmill geek, have been for decades now. I work with modern wind energy, but my interest in the subject has led off in many directions, including traditional or "Dutch" windmills. I have...[more]
Developed by the Coalition’s Community Energy Working Group, this white paper reviews measures that stimulate and sustain community energy. Although renewable energy investments by citizens and...
Guinness Book of Records is considering a new category--world's longest running or oldest megawatt-scale wind turbine. The question was thrown at me by Britta Jensen, one of the operators of...[more]
Australians are far more welcoming of change than we expect, and are furious at having been shut out of being direct participants
On 21 November Thilo Wirth visited the Grevenbroich test site west of Cologne and took several photos of the damaged Agile Wind Power's Vertical Sky 32.[more]
Swiss VAWT Vertical Sky 32 lost one of its three rotor arms and blade Sunday 15 November at the Grevenbroich test site according to German media. The prototype turbine was installed at the test site...[more]
This week, a 13-year experiment in harnessing wind power using kites and modified gliders finally closes down for good.
Feed-in tariffs at the federal and state level have been proven to be highly effective around the world. It’s time to bring back this powerful tool to really move the ball forward on the renewable...
Kosovo’s* State Aid Commission (SAC) said on Facebook that it has found that the scheme approved by the Energy Regulatory Office (ERO) is illegal. The administratively set feed-in-tariff scheme was...
Projects entitled to receive feed-in tariffs under the country's incentive scheme may also secure rebates but only under certain conditions.
The cut, which the Government itself qualifies as “retroactive”, will affect a few hundred contracts concluded between 2006 and 20104, out of the 235,000 signed in that period. Pursuant to the text...
Victoria’s Essential Services Commission released its draft decision on minimum feed-in tariff rates from 1 July 2021 yesterday. To quickly rip the band-aid off: the proposed minimum single rate...
In response to my article Who Built the World's First Wind Farm? Thomas Leitlein argues that it was the island of Rhodes off the coast of Turkey in the Aegean Sea. He makes his case below.[more]
As interest in the Smith-Putnam project heated up, a colleague directed me to a video of the famous mill at Gedser in Denmark. It was at Gedser where the modern wind industry began.[more]
Because of increasing historical interest in the Smith-Putnam wind turbine, I've added two new pages on the Project: patents for the wind turbine and four industrial drawings from the 1941 patent,...[more]
Heat from below the Earth’s surface has provided a reliable source of electricity for decades in many countries — but not Canada. Now, several projects underway in western provinces could herald a...
Scientists at the KIT Energy Center at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology say there is enough lithium dissolved in the groundwater extracted by German geothermal heating and electricity...
Bavaria has 20 deep-well plants and more in planning. Now its neighbor state in the south, Baden-Wuerttemberg, is picking up the thread. Deep geothermal energy is to become a cornerstone of its...
Further confirmation of Bernard Chabot's "Silent Revolution" in large wind turbine design.
Contrary to the ideas promulgated by some opponents of wind generation, most of the substantial investment in wind farms in South Australia is not being paid for by taxpayers or electricity consumers...
At the heart of the problem has been governments’ trust in market solutions without a sharp eye on the shortfalls in market performance and without adequate leadership on the long term outcome the...
Times change. People die. The rest forget. The past is lost and with it the knowledge we gained at so much cost.[more]
Unless changed by DOER, or the legislature, the latest version of SMART erects strong barriers to moving effectively toward 100% renewable power in the long run, and will cost many renewable jobs,...
Martin Frey's wonderful little guidebook to the Energiewende in Germany is now available in English. Germany - Renewable Energy Experience Baedeker Guides. Frey's book is highly recommended for...[more]
